MUSC Children's Hospital will use a $1 million charitable investment
from The Boeing Company to establish a community-based center aimed at
promoting better health among the state's young people.

The Boeing Center for
Promotion of Healthy Lifestyles in Children and Families will focus on
helping children make the link of how healthy diets and physical
activity impact good health.

MUSC President Dr. Ray Greenberg,
second from left, is presented with a commemorative Boeing 787
Dreamliner during the May 5 ceremony. With Greenberg are Lorenzo
"Dipper" Burns, from left, Boeing S.C. employee; Jim Albaugh, Boeing
Commercial Airplanes president and CEO; Tim Keating, Boeing senior vice
president of government operations, and Jack Jones, Boeing S.C. vice
president and general manager.

The center will help
children adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors through a multi-pronged
approach involving nutrition counseling, fitness training, exercise
classes, medical assessments, individualized treatments and
participation in group programs. Because young people acquire so many
of their lifestyle habits at home and in school, the center also will
support teachers and families in how to foster environments more
supportive of healthy living.

Although the center will
be housed and managed from MUSC Children's Hospital, its activities
will take place at schools and other locations throughout the
community. The idea, said MUSC President Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., is
to prevent unhealthy lifestyles from developing in the first place.

"Children are our future
and by making this investment, Boeing is helping to shape a healthier
South Carolina. We need to instill healthy lifestyle practices at the
youngest possible ages in order to prevent the development of diabetes,
obesity, high blood pressure and other illnesses down the road."

By the end of the center's
two-year ramp-up period, it will serve more than 8,000 children and
family members, and an estimated 47,000 children and 8,000 personnel
who will benefit from menu adjustments and other environmental changes
made in 79 schools.

Friday, May 27, 2011

The
Catalyst Online is published weekly by the MUSC Office of Public
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University of South Carolina. The Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn,
can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy
can be submitted to The Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by
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